Medium Posts Publishing Guide
Now that you are all set to submit a write-up after your event, here's a few pointers to help you through the next steps.
This guide will walk you through the important steps we take before publishing event write-ups on medium. You will need to create a medium account and then have the Code for Africa communications team, add you as a writer on the Hacks/Hackers Medium publication.
A lot is said during a meetup, however, In the course of the event, it’s important to identify the most interesting/insightful comments or facts raised which will form the basis/theme of the post-event write-up. Why is this important? This helps you weave a coherent narrative around the meetup’s theme.
This is how people determine if an article is worth their time. Before publishing ensure the headline, sub-head line and cover image are representative of the post’s theme and encourage people to read the post. Here’s how a story looks in the medium newsfeed and on other social media feeds:
For the Headline use power words or grand pronouncements eg: “ It Just Got Harder To Lie To The Public: Introducing PesaCheck ” or headlines that use negative words like “stop”, “never”, and “don’t ever ____ again”
You can use this tool to check and balance the length and sentiment of your headlines as you build upon the headline content.
The cover image serves as your story’s ambassador everywhere. Other images used in the post should be thematically consistent as they serve to break up long text stretches.
- Use images in Landscape orientation and not portrait.
- Adjust Image brightness and contrast before uploading to ensure they are clear and depict the intended message. For instance, correct brightness of images taken in dark rooms.
- Identify a focal point to place the image that relates to the text.
- Caption all images used.
- Here’s a link to our Photos repo where we update photos taken during different StoryLab Academy events.
- You can also access creative commons-licenced stock photos on findaphoto or Unsplash
- You can also emblazon the story’s headline across the opening image.
The lede hooks the audience and makes them read further by focusing on the most important/interesting/hardest hitting fact or comment. It is short, sharp, and written in the active (rather than passive) tense.
You want to create the scene in your lede, but don’t get too bogged down in the background to your event, and be specific. “Corruption is an issue in Africa, and funds are often diverted to vested interests”, for example, is likely to put off readers who know that Africa is not a country and that corruption is universal. Be punchy, to the point_ “Recent email leaks linking the president of South Africa to business interests show that the highest office in the land has been compromised by corruption. So last week’s workshop on tech tools for transparency held by Code for Africa was a timely event.”_
Code for Africa is expanding all over the continent, but many of our events are (quite rightly) designed around local issues. Our readers, however, are international - they may not know instinctively where a story is coming from, either because they’re unfamiliar with a city name or there are multiple cities with the same name. Make it easy for them - mention the country chapter or place of origin fairly early on.
Create a compelling narrative of most of the information shared, with the most important information at the top of the story and the lesser important information towards the end of the story. This weaves a theme/ topic/issue throughout the story which creates a unified narrative around the agenda.The write-up sequence of facts, should not simply be a chronological record of who spoke 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.
Depending on the subject matter, it is important to include a call to action toward the end of each post. Here’s a few examples: **Post about the StoryLab Academy: **Interested in signing-up for a #StoryLabAcademy Digital Journalism course? Register here for a launch invite.
Posts about Hacks/Hackers AfricaWant to attend a meetup? Join your local Hacks/Hackers chapter to get invites and alerts.
After including the call to action, add this standard boiler-plates to the text as they appear here:
Here’s an example which includes more information about the writer on the post. You can also include ways through which people can connect with you.
Use this standard partner information (In italics) as is at the end of each post depending on what the post is about:
Include this image
The worlds of hackers and journalists are coming together, as reporting goes digital and Internet companies become media empires.
Journalists call themselves “hacks,” someone who can churn out words in any situation. Hackers use the digital equivalent of duct tape to whip out code.
Hacker-journalists try and bridge the two worlds. Hacks/Hackers Africa aims to bring all these people together — those who are working to help people make sense of our world. It’s for hackers exploring technologies to filter and visualize information, and for journalists who use technology to find and tell stories. In the age of information overload and collapse of traditional business models for legacy media, their work has become even more crucial.
Code for Africa, the continent’s largest #OpenData and civic technology initiative, recognizes this and is spearheading the establishment of a network of HacksHackers chapters across Africa to help bring together pioneers for collaborative projects and new ventures.
Include this image
Code for Africa (CfA) is the continent’s largest federation of data journalism and civic technology laboratories, with labs in four countries and affiliates in a further six countries. CfA manages the $1m/year innovateAFRICA.fund and $500,000/year impactAFRICA.fund, as well as key digital democracy resources such as the openAFRICA.net data portal and the GoToVote election toolkit. CfA’s labs also incubate a series of trendsetting initiatives, including the PesaCheck fact-checking initiative in East Africa, the continental africanDRONE network, and the African Network of Centres for Investigative Reporting (ANCIR) that spearheaded Panama Papers probes across the continent.CfA is an initiative of the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ).
Google News Lab empowers the creation of media that improves people’s lives. It’s mission is to collaborate with journalists and entrepreneurs everywhere to build the future of media with Google. It does this through product partnerships, media trainings, and programs that foster the development of the news industry as a whole. Google began its support for digital and data journalism in Africa in 2010 through intensive workshops and continues to offer newsroom-targeted trainings. It also supported innovateAFRICA’s predecessor, the African News Innovation Challenge, in 2012.
The World Bank Global Media Development Programme helps the media leverage digital technologies to strengthen its role as a driver of good governance. In Africa, this has included support for data-driven journalism training starting in 2011, as part of efforts to improve the media’s analytical capacity. The World Bank also works with African governments to help make data for decision making on development and economic issues more easily available to citizens and the media. The World Bank’s support has included co-funding for the SudanData to build statistical capacity and data literacy amongst journalists, as well as support for the HURUmap initiative to make census and demographic data more easily available to African newsrooms.
Congratulations on writing this blogpost. You can now submit the post to the relevant publication for posting on medium.